GCN+ being closed, December 2023

Ive been doing eurosport for three years. Not sure how I paid. But I have a NA credit card and now it just renews on it.

Out of curiosity, how much is it? And you get full Eurosport, not just cycling?

I see a lot of hate for Flosport (and for good reason as it’s expensive garbage) but if it means having access to all races that GCN will no longer stream it would be excellent news if I’m being honest. Streaming rights have been such an issue living in Canada, from movies to live sports, it’s simply ridiculous how much money it cost these days having streaming access to what used to be a normal cable subscription. We’re getting fleeced from all sides by streaming services and the worst part our real only options is either using a semi-legal VPN (which not always work anyways) to view certain content because it’s either simply not being offered here in Canada or I need to buy multiple subscriptions (each for a ridiculously high price - looking at you DAZN…) to see all the live content I would like to watch. The worst part is, I would be ok paying a higher price to all most of my content under one streaming services but streaming licensing or rights has made this impossible in North America… I just want a Eurosport type service for which I do not need to use VPN. I was born on the wrong continent I think…

Yet at a dinner party years ago, Lance became a subject which really surprised me. People that likely never rode a bike after they graduated from college (IF they had to ride a bike even then) were animatedly discussing Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France. I was so surprised, and just let the discussion take its course for a while. My hope was that cycling would become something that more people talk, and care about. Yet at a different gathering where Lance was discussed went off the rails. It was a group of the undereducated, and their opinions were jarring. It was hard to hear them saying that ā€˜Lance was attacked because he was successful’. Um… What??? Do you… What… Ummm… Does illegal substances mean anything? Does deliberately LYING to practically everyone in his life not mean anything? I tossed out the ā€˜he cheated’, and they generally said ā€˜So what!’. So should everyone cheat then? ā€˜Sure, why not!’ and ā€˜He was a great American cyclist!’ (I felt so sorry for Greg Lemond, THE last greatest American Cyclist IMO). sigh

So, just to make sense of this, you guys from USA/Canada can’t sign up for Discovery+?

We can they haven’t posted or told any of us over here what races, if any will be broadcasted. It seems for now (per GCN email) only Europeans will be able to watch most races. I’m not paying for discovery unless they have a lot of the same races GCN had.

I have discovery plus. Its shit here. We get shows like gold rush and sister wives. No sports at all. Food network and all that. Its really crap lol.

More on why FloSports sucks

Yup……FLO sucks.

That is why I didn’t get discovery+ and went with GCN+, I saw the lineup and realized the US discovery is totally different. I really hope Red Bull TV takes back the World Cup MTB and maybe takes some other stuff as well. Since I signed up for GCN+ I started watching cyclocross on the trainer too. Fingers crossed.

While Discovery+ exists on a global basis, they are very different platforms across regions.

So when some here are talking about D+ in the EU or UK, thee is almost no correlation to the platform in the US.

And then there is difference between countries in Europe. At least with GCN+ we were talking about the same product :slight_smile:

WB/Discovery also owns Max, that now has some live sports under the Bleacher Report add on. They could put the cycling content there I suppose.

That’s my hope. I get MAX as part of my cell phone plan. It would be great to not have to sign up for another streaming service.

The max sports add on is free until end of Feb, then $10 per month. Will be interesting to see if they go w max or Flo.

All of the proposed solutions for the US suck. All I want is cycling coverage. I don’t want to pay for all the extra crap I don’t care about/ won’t watch. This is the part I don’t get about shuttering GCN+: go ahead and consolidate the backend infrastructure to cut costs, but why do away with the front end? Bump the price if you have to. But probably for me, I’m not going to sign up for any of the options if I have to pay a lot for a vastly inferior product.

I like to watch cycling on the trainer, and I tune into the major races, but I will learn to live without it

I’m wondering what I’ll do for hard workout entertainment for inside workouts. I might get the f1 app again but it doesn’t interest me like cycling racing does.
It’s easy to watch shows for anything below threshold but above, I need racing. I know first world problems.

For me, the answer is action movies. Something low on dialog and high on action keeps my brain occupied. I’ll even pause it for the rest intervals and then kick it back on when it’s time to put out power.

Sounds good Pluto TV does have ā€œFlicks of Furyā€ old and new king fu movies. :thinking:

My current goto is zwift + podcast + workout. What I have observed, the illusion of forward movement makes the indoor training way better.

My favourite is:

It makes my brain happy and works pretty great during z2 rides.